BEASLEY STREET - JOHN COOPER CLARKE

Far from crazy pavements - The taste of silver spoons A clinical arrangement On a dirty afternoon Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud Are rendered obsolete The legal term is null and void In the case of Beasley Street

In the cheap seats where murder breeds Somebody is out of breath Sleep is a luxury they don't need - a sneak preview of death Belladonna is your flower Manslaughter your meat Spend a year in a couple of hours On the edge of Beasley Street

Where the action isn't That's where it is State your position Vacancies exist In an X-certificate exercise Ex-servicemen excrete Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies In a box on Beasley Street

From the boarding houses and the bedsits Full of accidents and fleas Somebody gets it Where the missing persons freeze Wearing dead men's overcoats You can't see their feet A riff joint shuts - opens up Right down on Beasley Street

Cars collide, colours clash Disaster movie stuff For a man with a Fu Manchu moustache Revenge is not enough There's a dead canary on a swivel seat There's a rainbow in the road Meanwhile on Beasley Street Silence is the code

Hot beneath the collar An inspector calls Where the perishing stink of squalor Impregnates the walls The rats have all got rickets They spit through broken teeth The name of the game is not cricket Caught out on Beasley Street

The hipster and his hired hat Drive a borrowed car Yellow socks and a pink cravat Nothing La-di-dah OAP, mother to be Watch the three-piece suite When shit-stoppered drains And crocodile skis Are seen on Beasley Street

The kingdom of the blind A one-eyed man is king Beauty problems are redefined The doorbells do not ring A lightbulb bursts like a blister The only form of heat Here a fellow sells his sister Down the river on Beasley Street

The boys are on the wagon The girls are on the shelf Their common problem is That they're not someone else The dirt blows out The dust blows in You can't keep it neat It's a fully furnished dustbin, Sixteen Beasley Street

Vince the ageing savage Betrays no kind of life But the smell of yesterday's cabbage And the ghost of last year's wife Through a constant haze Of deodorant sprays He says retreat Alsations dog the dirty days Down the middle of Beasley Street

StreetPeople turn to poison Quick as lager turns to piss Sweethearts are physically sick Every time they kiss. It's a sociologist's paradise Each day repeats On easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy Beastly Beasley Street

Eyes dead as vicious fish Look around for laughs If I could have just one wish I would be a photograph On a permanent Monday morning Get lost or fall asleep When the yellow cats are yawning Around the back of Beasley Street

Stephen Conroy Mr 14.4 Downloads

Stephen Conroy wants to slow down your Aussie Broadband Experience under the guise that we are all child pornographers. When I first had internet in the US, it was 14.4 downloads with this. If Stephen and his political pals have their way we will be heading back that way very fast. Our ISP's will be jacking up their rates and our overall experience will be worse. Imagine downloading porn and the like on a dial up connection. Perhaps it will achieve their objectives. What I hate is the hypocrisy. This is the Labor equivalent of Work Choices. Who knew? Nasty public policy thrust down our throats by smiling assassins. No thanks.

It is an utterly bogus and sick political strategy. So looks like with all the baloney with the broadband rollout plan, his plan is that you pay more and you get less. I don't like it along with a few other people. This kind of stuff needs to be opposed root and branch. You can make a difference by making a phone call or writing an email. I think that it is worth it.

Kevin and his conservative side of Labor appear to be serious. As such their stupid plans need to be opposed very seriously.

There are many organisations who are working to oppose net censorship in Australia. Get Up is one. This is their take. There are many many resources and I would urge you to research them. Personally I have written to many local and Commonwealth Politicians. I have had some very supportive responses from all sides of politics although the closer you get to Minister Conroy, the more you get "So you like child pornography on the internet?" Very insulting. I recommend that you write some emails, call some politicians offices. If you are here in South Australia, Mike Rann, the State Premier is the Top Cheese of the Australian Labor Party this year. He also has a tough reelection next year. I am sure that he is fair game for an email.

This is what I got from Get Up.

Dear Colin,
Thank you for taking the time to speak out against the Government's misguided plan for a mandatory internet filter.

You have joined many thousands of members of the public, as well as Internet Service Providers, censorship and human rights experts in calling on the Government to drop the scheme.

Testing has already begun - please take a moment to tell your friends and colleagues about this campaign so that we can build a powerful movement to stop the mandatory filter dead in its tracks.

Just forward the original email below.

You can also collect petition signatures from your own social network page, blog or website with our new 'Save the Net' widget. It's secure and easy to use. Click here for more details.

Thanks,
The GetUp team

-----------------Original email to forward to your friends-------------------

Dear friend,

Imagine a government proposing an internet censorship system that went further than any other democracy - one that made the internet up to 87% slower, more expensive, accidentally blocked up to one in 12 legitimate sites, and missed the vast majority of inappropriate content.

This is not China, Saudi Arabia or Iran - this is the vision of Senator Stephen Conroy for Australia. Testing has already begun. The community must now move to stop this plan. Click here to save the net:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet

The system that Senator Conroy wants is a mandatory filter of all internet traffic, with the government of the day able to add any unwanted site to a secret blacklist. Already, the wrangling has begun for the inclusion of material relating to anorexia, euthanasia and gambling. It isn't difficult to see the scheme is open to abuse.

Even when it comes to preventing child p-rnography, the filter will not prevent peer-to-peer sharing and is very simple to sidestep. The protection of our children is vitally important - that's why we can't afford to waste funds on this deeply flawed system. We should be concentrating on solutions that are more effective and won't undermine our digital economy or our democratic freedoms.

This must rank as one of the most ill-thought decisions of the Rudd Government's first year in power. We need to act now to tell big brother the mandatory internet filter is incompatible with the principles of a modern democracy and modern economy:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet

Our government should be doing all in its power to take Australia into the 21st century economy, and to protect our children. This proposed internet censorship does neither. Take action to save the net today.

Thanks for being a part of the solution,
The GetUp team

PS - The proposed scheme will pass all internet traffic through a government filter - it's like asking Australia Post to filter every letter sent in Australia. Click here to save the net.

Scary Stuff. Now is the time to do something. Not later, when these guys have stitched things up.

It's just so UnAustralian (Thanks Roy).

I am waiting for somebody to tell me why this is such a great idea. Senator Conroy and your accolytes, please make your case. Don't have Australia up there with Saudi Arabia and China. We all have our own minds. We don't need Kevin Ingsoc Rudd and his Pals to dictate.

Thank you.

Stephen Conroy is Nuts

The Minister for Internet Slowdown and Sham Save the Children Censorship, Phillip Ruddock? Kevin Andrews?Stephen Conroy is wrong on his nutty plan to weed out wacko internet sites and save the children.

We don't need the World Wide Wall of China here in Australia. Just invest in the infrastructure and leave it to adults and parents to make wise choices for themselves and for children about what to watch on the net.

It is impossible for the Government to block every website with illegal or inappropriate material. This just gives parents a false impression the internet is safe for their children and abrogates their responsibility to monitor their child's internet usage. Parental supervision is the only way to ensure that children do not access offensive or inappropriate material.

The Government's own testing has revealed that the technology is flawed: it blocks content that should not be blocked, it is unable to block peer-to-peer traffic that comprises of more than 60 per cent of Australia's internet traffic and it can be easily avoided through the use of an encrypted Virtual Private Network.

Government testing has also indicated that the filter might slow internet speeds by up to 70 per cent. It is somewhat ironic that the same Government that is committed to a National Broadband Network would also slow internet speeds by insisting on a technologically flawed model of government censorship.

Watching commercial television of late, I would say that there is a greater case for censorship of puerile and moronic content, leaving aside some of the adult themed programmes shown far to early in the evening. Focus on that.

Deviants and wierdos will find ways to access the type of materials that the censorship plan is set up to block. Peer to Peer and Virtual Private Networks and the like will not be regulated by this plan.

Have your say too. This is Australian Government Policy and they are moving forward fast to make your home internet more expensive, slower and more restricted. Great policy guys. A massive internet age furphy. Guess who were the masters of that style of politics. The Australian people just kicked them out of office.

Laurel Papworth is coordinating some resistance. You can too.

This Could Be You

All bloggers should read this one.

One domino, two dominos.... pretty soon it all tumbles down and we will be forced to read and write vaccuous stuff.

Thanks Mr Eugenides

Preparing to run with the (Sydney) Olympic Torch

Eight Years too late. Still it is in the spirit of the Olympics.



Thanks to my colleague Sandra, who did run with it and even forked out to get a replica. She was mad enough to share her treasure with me.



And talking of getting sentimental and patriotic.The girl in the cubicle next to me started to hum this as she was holding the torch.



This was filmed along the east sands in Saint Andrews where I spent many years of my childhood. What a great scene. Bloody cold I would say too. Speaking of which, we just had a hail storm which sounded very loud in our glass building.



Please note that this blog is banned in China, along with gazillions of others.



So much for the pitch to get the Olympics. Let Freedom Reign. Not!



Kevin Gosper, major fall guy for the IOC. I mean what do you expect, this is not a democracy and raw power and commercial imperatives rule the roost.



Update. Journalists are to be uncensored. Lucky Duckies.

Censorship Smokescreen by New Age Labor

The New Age Labor Government has proposed mandatory filtering of objectionable (to be determined) internet sites, focussing on protecting children.

Stephen Collins, who obviously understands a lot more about the technical issues and who is also a parent has a well balanced piece discussing the proposed internet filtering plan.

Yesterday’s announcement verifying the Australian Federal Government will be mandatorily requiring ISPs to filter the nastiness from the ‘Net is plain and simple stupidity. Not only is it simply not achievable, it’s nanny stating at its worst and significantly limiting of free speech (something we don’t have a guaranteed right to in Australia AFAIK).

I am all for protecting children. We do it by only allowing internet access in our living room with parental supervision and talking openly about any slightly off the wall stuff that inevitably comes up.

Personally I think that this is just a smokescreen to mask some of the really hard decisions coming up about how to proceed with the huge promised broadband investment and the fight with Yanqui Sol and the boys from Telstra as they set about their plan to reestablish the Telstra monopoly on the the most profitable parts of the telecommunications infrastructure in Australia.

Duncan Riley from Techcrunch also has some thoughts including some good links and a very robust comment thread.

And here is the Public Announcement from Teh Department of Internets (Interwebs??)